Supra x Mod Sun Capsule Collection

Supra x Mod Sun

“Every day I wake up I’m really surprised and honored.”

SUPRA joined forces with musician, poet, painter, and writer Mod Sun for their trippiest and most artistic collaboration to date. After expressing his love for the brand and his skate hero Chad Muska, SUPRA partnered with Mod Sun to customize an array of their low top canvas silhouettes in an exclusive capsule collection.

Taking art straight from the mind of the Hippy-Hop artist himself Supra wraps their popular Cobalt in Mod Sun’s sketches – truly making it an art piece for your feet. Living by the belief that his fans aren’t just fans but his friends, Mod Sun made a shoe that is limited but yet attainably priced so all his “friends” can join in on the celebration of his first official sneaker collaboration.

If the Cobalts weren’t enough, Mod Sun has created two limited edition t-shirts featuring a pop art-inspired tribute to both Basquiat and Warhol. This love for art, fashion, and expressing his creativity in a variety of mediums is why Mod Sun is one of our favorite artists. We had a chance to speak with the professional optimist to learn more about why he loves Supra [and Chad Muska].

High Fashion Living: Tell me how this collaboration came about.

Mod Sun: The whole process started like this, Supra has been one of my favorite shoe companies for the longest time, they’re a very affordable shoe that started in the skate world. Then when Lil Wayne was wearing the Supra Skytop at the height of his career, and you saw one of your favorite rappers wearing a shoe that everyone could afford, I was like, oh my god, lightbulb, that was the goal. Every one of your favorite rappers right now is wearing thousand dollar sneakers—and that’s cool, that’s one part of high fashion, but when you can hit that idea of the coolest people in the world wearing something that’s affordable and accessible, that’s inclusive and it’s something I believe in.

High Fashion Living: So you had more on your mind than just making a pair of shoes.

Mod Sun: I’m really adamant about the best way to make a change in this world is not fighting against what you don’t believe in, but finding the things you do believe in and working from the inside out—and I want to have an impact on this industry.

High Fashion Living: Where does your impact start then?

Mod Sun: I am so into the understanding that products are completely useless without a consumer, I really care so much about where a product ends up and who has it. Obviously the shoes are amazing, but the person buying it, the consumer, that’s what makes my day—literally, the shoes just sold out right now, they’ve been out for five hours and just sold out right now. I’ve been building up this anticipation of releasing a shoe, which I’ve never done before, but I was very confident in knowing the people that support me are doing this for the right reasons and saw how much this meant to me. The whole fact of what I was saying to the world about this product was heard and that people that support me heard that and support me to this point, remembering that feeling and seeing that support, I feel so lucky.

High Fashion Living: How did the concept for the shoe come about?

Mod Sun: I approached Supra and said “I love you guys, Chad Muska is the man” and they sent me some white shoes, I don’t own anything that’s white, haha, so I took out a marker and just started drawing all over them—I must have posted something on Instagram or something, because Supra saw it and said they were going to send me more shoes to draw on. They wanted to do this collab where Mod Sun released ten more pairs that I’ve drawn on. I was super into it, it was fulfilling a childhood dream, I was a skater growing up and this was like fulfilling a destiny.

High Fashion Living: So that’s how the doodle design was created?

Mod Sun: Well, they had just found a new way to print things that took a design right off the paper and printed it onto canvas so my illustrations could go from my sketches to being printed identically onto the shoe. Skate culture, punk culture, we’ve been drawing on our clothes for forever, but being able to do it like this, see my drawings go from notebook to product like that, it was cool.

High Fashion Living: What’s the inspiration behind the drawings?

Mod Sun: I’m very open about who I’m inspired by—Andy Warhol and Jean Michel Basquiat, obviously, is what all my artistic desires, the art that I do, is inspired by. Art has been an escape for me since day one, and when I paint or something for myself, it’s going to look like something that’s inspired by them. So that’s where the style of the doodles comes from.

High Fashion Living: What has this experience meant to you?

Mod Sun: It really was like, that kid that skated when he was younger, transitioned into music that saw all this and came in and pitched this idea without any fear. That’s how this went, I went into this being fearless. You have to figure out the things that scare you and run straight at them. I want to change this industry. It’s the only way this 32-year-old punk, artist, rapper, hippy could go into a company and say listen, we’re going to sell out of this shoe on the first day—and we did, we actually did sell out of them on the first day, and the only way that happened was by running head first into it.

Having already been seen on the feet of Hollywood elite including one-time beau actress Bella Thorn and many other influencers, the Modsun x SUPRA collection released globally to the public May 6th at select SUPRA retailers and online via suprafootwear.com